A journey of the mind afloat in space and time. An emotion capture. Arresting images and some great poems and lyrics.

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Monthly Archives: September 2014

On this day, Sept 29th in the year 61 BC Pompey the Great celebrated his third and final triumph for his victories over the Pirates and Mithridates. His war against the Pirates is seen by many to be the Roman equivalent of the “War on Terror”. Basically an elaborate political sham which sets up an un-winnable conflict which results in putting a lot of money in the hands of a small number of individuals, and securing political positions for a number of years.

Pompey used the “War on Pirates” to secure his most extraordinary command ever. He was given pro-consular imperium over all of the seas from Gibraltar to Judea, and over the coastlines for 50 miles inland in every province, for the purpose of “hot pursuit” of pirates. This gave him senior authority over the governors of the coastal provinces for the purpose of this campaign.

He ostensibly swept the seas free of pirates, making him the “First man in Rome” and securing for him the juicy task of the war in the East against the fabulously rich empire of Mithridates. In reality Pompey drove many of the “Pirates” out of their towns and cities, and then negotiated with them for their “peaceful” return as loyal subjects of Rome. This status involved payment of hefty fines and tributes to Pompey and his Legates.

It was nothing if not a masterstroke. I wonder, what was the Roman equivalent of Halliburton and Lockheed-Martin?

The truth is, the so called “war on terror” is simply the realisation of George Orwell’s 1984. The principle that “War is Peace”. By keeping the populace focused on a constant shifting state of war, against an enemy that is impossible to beat, those who wield power can quash any serious attempt to oust them from their positions. If the opposition organise in any meaningful way, simply raise the “threat level” to orange and red, drive through some new law, and arrest the leaders as terrorists.

The trigger for the ancient Romans was the grain supply. For modern Americans the trigger is the oil supply. It costs a lot of public money to keep those privately owned oil tankers running. The working man pays taxes to keep an aircraft carrier on station in the straits of Hormuz. As long as the oil flows the oil barons continue to line their wallets. They make political donations in the right places to keep the wheels greased.

So what happens if the environmental groups lobby for better energy management and for the US to be energy solvent?

You can get the CIA or FBI or Secret Service to blow up a large public building in New York you will have a queue of terrorist organisations lining up to claim responsibility. If you don’t find one even better, make one up. You can spend decades trying to track down a terrorist organisation that never existed.

As long as people look to the sky in fear of the next attack they will not worry about pithy concerns like gas mileage, CO2 production, low level ozone, blower tests or deep water drilling.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.………………………………….George Orwell

We all know the story about how the Flag of the USA has 50 stars which represent 50 states and 13 stripes which represent the original 13 colonies.

All lies. To begin with, there are not even 50 states in the USA, there are only 45. The “District of Columbia” is not a State. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia are not states, they are “Commonwealths”. Other commonwealths of the USA are Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. So the USA has 45 states and if you include districts and commonwealths the number is 52. So why are there not 52 stars on the flag?

Also, why 13 stripes? There were 24 British colonies in America when the rebellion began. For instance, Florida was part of the British colonies, and is now part of the USA. But it is not counted as one of the “original” colonies.

The truth is shocking. When you hear the truth all will become clear. Why are the USA attacking Afghanistan? Why are they in Iraq? Why do they bomb Syria? Why did they support the “Arab Spring” revolts in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain etc?

Here is the truth, and please forgive me as I must bring you back in time all the way to the Crusades.

In the year 1120 the Crusaders found a great secret, or treasure, in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in the ruins of the ancient Temple of Solomon. The order of Knights Templar was founded to guard this terrible secret. So what secret could be so terrible?

What they found was an ancient prophesy from 1,000 BCE. This prophesy spoke of a prophet who would arise in Mecca, that his name would be “Worthy of Praise” and that he would sweep the Jews from the face of the earth. King Solomon was so worried by this prophesy that he had a great shaft dug on the Temple Mount. He buried the prophesy in this shaft and covered it over. He built a great temple on top of the shaft, in the hope that the God of the Jews would be praised, and would prevent the prophesy from coming true.

Two thousand years later when the Crusaders dug up this prophesy they saw that it had come true. The prophet was Mohammed and his name means “praiseworthy”. The armies of Islam were sweeping the world. When this prophesy came to light there was a secret meeting between the Pope in Rome, the Patriarch in Constantinople and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. They agreed to a plan to set up an organisation to combat Islam. This organisation was the Knights Templar.

From the very beginning the Knights Templar was set up with great wealth and great secrecy. To cover their real purpose they were given a role to “protect pilgrims on the roads to the holy land”. But this was only ever a cover.

At this stage I want you to remember two images. One is the image of the Templar Banner, red crosses on a field of white.

The other is the banner of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, gold crosses on a field of blue.

To cut a long story very short, the Knights Templar amassed a huge treasure. They then used this treasure to establish a country, the USA, which has the purpose of fighting Islam They pretended to disappear, and had a sham trial of the order by the French King in 1307. In truth they went into hiding. They searched for a home where they could establish their new kingdom.

Look at any image of the Ships used by Columbus and what is the first thing you will notice? The Templar cross! Yes, Columbus was a member of the Templar order, on a mission to find a country in the New World where the war against Islam could grow. Columbus was not the only Templar sent to establish the new world. Look at the “San Antiago”, the ship of Amerigo Vespucci, look at the “Mathew” the ship of John Cabot, or “The Golden Hind” the ship of Francis Drake and even the Mayflower. What they all have in common is that they carry a white flag with a red cross. They were all Templar ships.

When the founding fathers of the USA designed their flag they did not want to be obvious. So the flag of the USA has a hidden set of meanings. We can begin with the Templar Cross. They took a simple white flag and on it they wrote the Islamic Creed, the Shahada. It reads

Lā ʾilāha ʾillā l-Lāh Muḥammadur rasūlu l-Lāh

which means There is no god but God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God

Put a number against each word in the creed.

1Lā 2ʾilāha 3ʾillā 4 l-Lāh 5Muḥammadur 6rasūlu 7l-Lāh

They placed these words in a vertical column on the flag, 7 words, each of which was then covered with a red stripe, a symbol of the triumph of the Templar Cross over Islam. So the stripes actually say “Death to the Islamic Creed”. On the original flag, stored in the Smithsonian Museum in a secure vault, the Shahada is actually embroidered beneath the stripes in a green silken thread, as green is a colour sacred to Islam. This is why there are 7 red stripes on the US flag. 7 stripes for 7 words.

So what do the stars mean? The Star is a symbol used in Islam to represent the Hope that one day all the world will submit to Allah and his prophet Mohammed. The religion is based on 5 pillars; 1 Shahada (the creed) 2 Salat (pray 5 times a day) 3 Zakat (give alms to the poor) 4 Sawm (fast during Ramadan) and 5 Hajj (make a pilgrimage to Mecca). The 5 pointed star is the symbol of the 5 pillars of Islam.

There are 49 countries in the world that have majority Islamic populations. The blue section of the flag of the USA is based on the blue flag of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There are 49 white stars to represent each of the majority Islamic countries, and one more star to represent Muslims who live as a minority in other countries.

If the USA succeed in conquering a Muslim country and converting it back to Christianity they will replace the white star with a gold cross. The aim of the USA is to have a flag with 50 gold crosses. If this happens the Prophesy of the Ancient Temple of Solomon will be broken.

Every morning in every school in the USA children make a pledge to the Flag of the USA. Soldiers in the US Army make the same pledge. The words of the pledge are:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

So you see, this is a prayer to make the world one nation under a Christian God.

Anyone buying this? I love a good conspiracy theory!

PS, if you see Muslims burning a US flag, tell them they are burning the words of the Shahada. That’s blasphemy, punishable by stoning to death!

It is interactive so you can select an origin country or group and see just the relations for them. It is probably very subjective. After all, who has the knowledge to decode the truth of such relationships in the real world?

Maps are a form of communication. Whenever you look at a map you should ask some critical questions about it. “Don’t be silly” you say, “a map is simply a depiction of how the world looks”. I say to you “Ask who drew the map, and why?”

Go to any city and pick up a local free tourist map. It is selling you a product, which has been designed and packaged for you by a small group of people. Your tourist trail is their agenda.

But you laugh at me because you are too modern for that. You don’t use “tourist maps”. You use modern technology. As you scan the map to your destination on your tablet or smartphone who is collecting your data and what are they doing with it? What information are they giving you?

The guys who drew the tourist map are fairly overt. At least I know what their job is. Think I’m being paranoid? Just wait. One of these days the Secret Service or MI5 or CIA or FBI or Hamas or Hezbollah or ISIS or the Mafia or the secret league of the sisters of the golden peony will take control of the technology for just a few moments. You will input your destination. They will give you a nice little map and it will lead you directly into their clutches. You may lose your money, your voice, your freedom or your life.

My daughter is really enjoying this year in school. She has secured a place on the Senior Choir (UCT Chamber Choir) and has picked up a lot of solo line parts in the annual musical, which this year is Les Misérables.

Victor Hugo set out his purpose for the novel Les Misérables in the following statement:

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

For her choir she is learning “Como Tu” by Alberto Grau, the world famous director of the Schola Cantorum de Caracas, the Venezuelan Choral Ensemble. Grau is one of the foremost choral composers in the world. I have listened to “Como Tu” and I get that it is technically brilliant, but…..being honest, it sounds a lot like a traffic jam to me. I’m just not a fan of this type of choir music. I’ll take Danny Boy any day.

Alberto Grau and I do share one thing and that is a love of poetry. Grau bases many of his works on lyrics drawn from poets. “Como Tu” is drawn from a fragment of the poem “A Margarita Debayale” by Rubén Darío, a Nicaraguan poet and father of the late 19th Century Latin American Modernismo movement.

Darío was heavily influenced by French poetry, especially the romantics and…..you guessed it: Victor Hugo. So my daughter is singing songs based on a novel by Victor Hugo and at the same time is singing a Choral piece based on a poem written by a poet who was influenced by Victor Hugo.

Back in 1641 at a time when the English and the Spanish were getting along well a pair of English ships spent three years trading in the Caribbean. The Galleons, Dover Merchant and Royal Merchant sailed back to Cadiz on their way home. In the port of Cadiz there was a fire which damaged a Spanish vessel that was due to carry the payroll to the army in Flanders. The English captain stepped in and offered to transport the gold and silver.

The two English ships were the worse for wear after a season at sea in the tropics. There is no doubt that they were heavy with weed, and had bulging seams and rotten caulking. Three years in the West Indies, under a punishing sun, can wreak havoc with planking and decking above the waterline. They may also have been infested with ship-worm. These days with modern steel ships, fibreglass and epoxy yachts we expect boats to be dry. Leaks are something that must be fixed. Traditional boat owners have a better sense of the realities of 17th century sailing. Wooden boats must be filled with water on the inside if they are wintered on the dockside. The timbers and caulking must be kept moist to prevent drying, which opens gaps in the seams. I have sailed in a Galway hooker for the first outing of a season, to see cataracts of water cascade through the seams above the waterline as we heeled over in the wind. Bailing and pumping out are part of the daily grind on a wooden ship.

Royal Merchant was leaking badly as they sailed through Biscay, being pumped out all the way. Off Lands End the weather took a turn for the worse. If your decks are leaking then rain and waves breaking on the deck add to your flooding woes. The overworked pumps broke down and the leaking ship began to sink. She went down off the Isles of Scilly, with the loss of 18 men. The other 40 men managed to board the ships boats and were rescued by the Dover Merchant.

Royal Merchant was the most valuable ship ever to sink. The salvage company that finds her stand to share in the region of one billion US dollars, once the legal teams figure out who owns the wreck.

Here is a poem about a sinking ship by Dora Sigerson Shorter. Dora was one of the leading lights of the Irish literary revival and the explosion of Celtic Culture and 19th Century mysticism. Given the context I think a closer reading may yield clues that it is not a Ship that is sinking, but something else. But what? Is this a poem in the vein of Yeats “September 1913” criticizing the bourgeoisie and the loss of direction in the struggle for Irish freedom? Is it a paean for the stagnation of the art movement? What is “the struggle” and who are “they” that shun it? I would welcome your thoughts in the comments section.

The Sinking Ship; by Dora Sigerson Shorter

The ship is sinking, come ye one and all.
Stand fast and so this weakness overhaul,
Come ye strong hands and cheery voices call,
“Stand by!”

The ship is sinking in a summer sea,
Bless her but once for all she used to be,
Who rode the billows once so proud and free,
If you but loved a little, with a sigh,
“Stand by!”

Gone, all are gone, they neither hear or care,
The sun shines on and life is ever fair.
They shun the struggle, laughter lurks elsewhere.
The ship is sinking, passing echoes cry,
“Stand by!”

The little ships that pass her in the night,
Speed from the darkness in their eager fright.
From troubled dreams they take refuge in flight.
Why should they then, who know they too must die,
“Stand by”?

Then get you gone, desert the sinking ship,
O faithless friends, who on her pleasure-trip
Clung close with gentle words and smiling lip,
And still as ever on your own joys cry,
“Stand by!”

The ship is sinking, parting in a smile,
The sunset waters mark the last sad mile
In dimpling play and in a little while
The waters close, Death and his angels cry,
“Stand by!”

Sept 22nd 480 BC the allied fleet of the southern Greek city states defeated the Persian fleet at the battle of Salamis. It was an unlikely victory, and one that stopped the Persian invasion in its tracks.
Up to this point the Greeks were in full retreat. Glorious as the 300 Spartans under Leonidas were at Thermopylae the Greeks were defeated on both land and sea.

Athens lay next in the path of the enormous army under Xerxes. When the Athenians consulted the oracle at Delphi they were advised, in highly vague terms as usual, to retreat behind their wooden walls. Athenian power came from their fleet, so they believed that this meant they should abandon the marble city and sail away. The Persians sacked Athens on the 21st of Sept. Next day the two sides fought a naval engagement; the battle of Salamis.

The victory by the Greek allies (half the fleet was Athenian) severely damaged the ability of the Persians to maintain their invasion. The Persians had no fleet themselves. They relied upon the fleets of the Asian greek states under their vasselage as well as the Phonecians. The clash at Salamis did little numerical damage to the Persian fleet, but it was a tactical disaster. The ships they lost were the “fast ships”. These were the bronze beaked war triremes. They served a similar role in ancient fleets to Destroyers on convoy duty during the Atlantic war in WW2. They protected the slow moving cargo vessels from enemy attack.

Once the Greeks had eliminated the Persian triremes, the sea was open to them. Capturing Persian transports was like shooting fish in a barrel. Also, the Triremes carried the best and the brightest of the strategists, navigators, rowing crews and sailors. The Persians were unable to replace these ships and men in the time needed to complete their invasion.

It is perhaps no surprise that Xerxes took this opportunity to remove himself from the campaign, and returned to Persia leaving Mardonius in charge.

According to the history books the Greeks did not immediately attack the Persian land army, because “an eclipse of the sun” occurred and was taken as a bad omen. They bided their time over the winter. What a lot of tosh. The Greek armies had been badly mauled in their defense of Attica. The respite accorded by the victory at Salamis gave them a much needed opportunity to rest, regroup and rearm. In the meantime the Greek navy undoubtedly went to work on the Persian supply fleet. Grain ships bound for Mardonius captured and brought to Greek armies.

As a result Mardonius had to retreat far north to Thessaly where he was in relatively friendly territory, and could secure supply routes from Persia. The following Summer he marched south again and met the allies at Platea. Where Salamis was a battle dictated by the Athenian sailors, Platea was dictated by the Spartan Hoplites. In a world where battles were fought by men banging shields, singing paeans and roaring defiance the Spartans stood apart. They marched in silence, a disciplined phalanx of red cloaked warriors, bringing death to their foe. Platea was the high watermark of the Spartan military system.
Platea was only made possible by Salamis. So it is the Battle of Salamis that goes down in history as the battle that saved Greek Independence, Greek Civilization and hence Western Civilzation. If the Greeks had not won at Salamis the world today would be a different place.

The Battle of Salamis; by Aeschylus

The night was passing, and the Grecian host
By no means sought to issue forth unseen.
But when indeed the day with her white steeds
Held all the earth, resplendent to behold,
First from the Greeks the loud-resounding din
Of song triumphant came; and shrill at once
Echo responded from the island rock.
Then upon all barbarians terror fell,
Thus disappointed; for not as for flight
The Hellenes sang the holy pæan then,
But setting forth to battle valiantly.
The bugle with its note inflamed them all;
And straightway with the dip of plashing oars
They smote the deep sea water at command,
And quickly all were plainly to be seen.
Their right wing first in orderly array
Led on, and second all the armament
Followed them forth; and meanwhile there was heard
A mighty shout: “Come, O ye sons of Greeks,
Make free your country, make your children free,
Your wives, and fanes of your ancestral gods,
And your sires’ tombs! For all we now contend!”
And from our side the rush of Persian speech
Replied. No longer might the crisis wait.
At once ship smote on ship with brazen beak;
A vessel of the Greeks began the attack,
Crushing the stem of a Phoenician ship.
Each on a different vessel turned its prow.
At first the current of the Persian host
Withstood; but when within the strait the throng
Of ships was gathered, and they could not aid
Each other, but by their own brazen bows
Were struck, they shattered all our naval host.
The Grecian vessels not unskillfully
Were smiting round about; the hulls of ships
Were overset; the sea was hid from sight,
Covered with wreckage and the death of men;
The reefs and headlands were with corpses filled,
And in disordered flight each ship was rowed,
As many as were of the Persian host.
But they, like tunnies or some shoal of fish,
With broken oars and fragments of the wrecks
Struck us and clove us; and at once a cry
Of lamentation filled the briny sea,
Till the black darkness’ eye did rescue us.
The number of our griefs, not though ten days
I talked together, could I fully tell;
But this know well, that never in one day
Perished so great a multitude of men.

Arrr, this be my favourite day of the year. International talk like a pirate day!

All hands on deck, man the main brace, aloft me boys and loose the sheets, set courses, topsails, topgallants, royals, moonrakers and skyscrapers. Weigh anchor and cast off. That be a sail on the horizon and she bears the look of a fat merchantman ripe for plucking.

Charge your pistols with fresh powder and give your cutlass a keen edge, it’s time to do what pirates do.

Here is a poem about real pirates. There was a famous raid on Baltimore in West Cork in 1631 by Barbary pirates from Algeria. The pirates captured 108, mostly English settlers who worked in the fishing industry in the town. Only 3 were ever ransomed. The poem is in a style I find overblown and turgid, in the Victorian tradition. Arr, but it be what it be.

The Sack of Baltimore ; by Thomas Osborne Davis

The Summer sun is falling soft on Carbery’s hundred isles,
The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel’s rough defiles;
Old Innisherkin’s crumbled fane looks like a moulting bird,
And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean tide is heard:
The hookers lie upon the beach; the children cease their play;
The gossips leave the little inn; the households kneel to pray;
And full of love, and peace, and rest, its daily labor o’er,
Upon that cosy creek there lay the town of Baltimore.

A deeper rest, a starry trance, has come with midnight there;
No sound, except that throbbing wave, in earth, or sea, or air!
The massive capes and ruin’d towers seem conscious of the calm;
The fibrous sod and stunted trees are breathing heavy balm.
So still the night, these two long barques round Dunashad that glide
Must trust their oars, methinks not few, against the ebbing tide.
Oh, some sweet mission of true love must urge them to the shore!
They bring some lover to his bride who sighs in Baltimore.

All, all asleep within each roof along that rocky street,
And these must be the lover’s friends, with gently gliding feet—
A stifled gasp, a dreamy noise! “The roof is in a flame!”
From out their beds and to their doors rush maid and sire and dame,
And meet upon the threshold stone the gleaming sabre’s fall,
And o’er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl.
The yell of “Allah!” breaks above the prayer, and shriek, and roar:
O blessed God! the Algerine is lord of Baltimore!

Then flung the youth his naked hand against the shearing sword;
Then sprung the mother on the brand with which her son was gor’d;
Then sunk the grandsire on the floor, his grand-babes clutching wild;
Then fled the maiden moaning faint, and nestled with the child:
But see! yon pirate strangled lies, and crush’d with splashing heel,
While o’er him in an Irish hand there sweeps his Syrian steel:
Though virtue sink, and courage fail, and misers yield their store,
There ’s one hearth well avenged in the sack of Baltimore.

Midsummer morn in woodland nigh the birds begin to sing,
They see not now the milking maids,—deserted is the spring;
Midsummer day this gallant rides from distant Bandon’s town,
These hookers cross’d from stormy Skull, that skiff from Affadown;
They only found the smoking walls with neighbors’ blood besprent,
And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile they wildly went,
Then dash’d to sea, and pass’d Cape Clear, and saw, five leagues before,
The pirate-galley vanishing that ravaged Baltimore.

Oh, some must tug the galley’s oar, and some must tend the steed;
This boy will bear a Scheik’s chibouk, and that a Bey’s jerreed.
Oh, some are for the arsenals by beauteous Dardanelles;
And some are in the caravan to Mecca’s sandy dells.
The maid that Bandon gallant sought is chosen for the Dey:
She ’s safe—she’s dead—she stabb’d him in the midst of his Serai!
And when to die a death of fire that noble maid they bore,
She only smiled, O’Driscoll’s child; she thought of Baltimore.

’T is two long years since sunk the town beneath that bloody band,
And all around its trampled hearths a larger concourse stand,
Where high upon a gallows-tree a yelling wretch is seen:
’T is Hackett of Dungarvan—he who steer’d the Algerine!
He fell amid a sullen shout with scarce a passing prayer,
For he had slain the kith and kin of many a hundred there.
Some mutter’d of MacMurchadh, who brought the Norman o’er;
Some curs’d him with Iscariot, that day in Baltimore.